


the world tries to stop you whenever it can

by reliquiaen



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 16:41:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9616406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reliquiaen/pseuds/reliquiaen
Summary: "Oh just great. How much more complicated can a situation in a narrow hallway possibly get?"welcome back to your regularly scheduled aus. this week ft gangsters. kinda. why is it so long. ;u;





	

The absolute worst part of the winter season is the waiting. It’s like they’re not even doing anything for three months out of the year. No the bloody wonder everyone goes stir crazy. There’s almost nothing left to unpack, nothing left to sort, repackage, store or ship. Nothing left to do at all except wait around and occasionally visit their various shopfronts around the city and pretend that filing needs work. It rarely does.

Actually, Alex amends her previous thought; the _worst_ part about the winter season isn’t being idle. It’s that there’s very little of note to do at all in a port town by the sea. Almost all of the tourism happens during summer. The closed windows in all the ice cream stores are downright depressing.

It’s not even a sleepy small town either, if it had been maybe Alex could’ve justified wintering elsewhere. But it’s not. And the most exciting thing to happen in the last two weeks was her little sister’s very public breakup. (Which had been fine because the aftermath had meant movie marathons and eating too much take out for a few days. But with that gone it’s back to boredom.)

So Alex travels between their properties and does her share of the work, looking over the records for the legitimate half of their business. Kara tells her she needs friends, but who can have friends in this line of work? The one time she’d tried that the friend had gotten accidentally hurt in a troublesome transportation incident and Alex had spent the night in hospital before telling him it was probably best they stop hanging out.

With a bullet hole freshly sewn shut, he’d been perfectly reasonable about it.

A crisp breeze blows down the street just as Alex turns onto it and she stuffs her hands deeper into her coat pockets, grumbling. She considers turning around and heading home, the weather sucks, but then she’ll just be sitting around there. At least she can pretend she’s doing something here. Sort of.

One of their businesses stands halfway down the street and while Alex actually has little idea what goes on there, she thinks it might be nice to get out of the bracing wind. The sign swinging above the door proclaims it to be a florist. She has basically no reason to be at a florists, the krypta trafficking is handled primarily by her sister. Though from the looks of it, this is where it’s housed before going off to be synthesised and is therefore easily hidden amongst the other flora.

Kara is, as she expects, not present. The shop is quite bare which is also not a surprise given the weather, but there’s enough to at least pretend the shop does good business. There’s no one behind the counter either, though the door does jingle to announce her arrival. She huffs, stamping her feet to try and warm up a little. It hardly seems right that a sunny town like this can get so cold in winter. And it doesn’t, for the most part, but when a cold snap rolls around it’s _cold_.

Even though there’s nothing for her to really do here, Alex turns to look at the flowers anyway. She might have no intention of buying anything, but it’s better than the cold outside. She does turn abruptly when there’s a loud noise on the street, however.

At first she thinks it’s nothing; just someone having car trouble.

Then it isn’t and everything seems to happen in fast forward. (Anyone who says shit like this happens in slow motion is lying through their teeth and she will punch them in the face.)

From the back room, a woman emerges, probably just now responding to the chime from the door. The dark car out on the street slows as it goes by the store and a man in a mask leans out the window. He has a machine gun in his hand.

Alex doesn’t hear when the first spray of bullets hits the shop front. She ducks instinctively. Then she remembers the store clerk and glances up.

The stupid woman is frozen in place, half way around the counter, in full view of the masked man. Alex opens her mouth to say something but the woman isn’t looking at her. She launches across the shop and grabs her about the waist, pulling her down and landing a little roughly on top of her. Alex keeps her arms over the woman’s face and buries her own nose in the crook of her elbow.

All she can really hear is her heart pounding in her ears.

Then the bullets stop – she feels it more than hears them cease – and she risks lifting her head. The car is gone, taking the gunman with it. Glass from the floor to ceiling windows glitters on the floor and a cold breeze is now whisking through the shop.

Beneath her, the woman shifts awkwardly and Alex scuttles backwards, rising to her feet before helping the attendant stand. She gives her a quick once over and is relieved to note she isn’t hurt at all. Well, beyond probably being bruised a little.

“Are you alright?” Alex asks her anyway.

The woman runs a hand down her other arm and then lifts it to rub her face. “Yes. Thank you. Are you?”

Alex nods. “Fine.”

Eyes wide, the woman looks momentarily around her shop and out at the street. Then she turns her gaze back to Alex and studies her intently. Something flickers in her eyes that Alex can’t identify but she smiles; it’s thin at first but warms up after a beat.

“I’m Maggie,” she says, sticking her hand out.

“Alex.” And she even surprises herself by shaking the proffered hand. Maggie’s palm is warm.

“Thanks,” Maggie repeats. “For saving my life.”

Alex just waves her hand, batting the thanks from the air. “No, it’s nothing. I’m sure it wasn’t fun being crash tackled anyway.”

Whatever that thing was before, twinkling in Maggie’s eyes, it’s back; a little mischievous she thinks. “Could’ve been much worse.” Maggie’s tone when she speaks sets something thrumming in Alex’s diaphragm.

It might be time to make her escape.

Because, the police, obviously, there’s no other reason? No, of course not.

“Yeah, uh.” Alex clears her throat awkwardly; backpedalling in the direction she hopes will take her to the door. Her boots crunch on the glass and she backs right up into one of the – miraculously – still standing pot shelves. It rattles and she turns to steady it, but then looks back at Maggie. She doesn’t know why, but thinks that might’ve been a mistake. “Okay, well you’re alright so I’m just gonna… go.” Her hand finds the handle of the door and she pulls it in (even though she could’ve just walked out through one of the holes where the windows were, but this seems more polite).

Maggie’s face falls about fifteen storeys and Alex doesn’t know why the expression bothers her. “Okay, well. Might see you around?” Her voice is hopeful? Why?

“Um, yeah. Maybe.”

Alex steps back out onto the footpath. For a second she stands there, and then she glances over her should at Maggie; she offers a little wave. With a deep breath (and fighting the smile that threatens her expression), Alex heads off down the street, back towards home. Her father will want to know about this.

Maggie’s crestfallen expression haunts her for days.

 

*

 

There are few things Alex had expected to happen post the drug-storage-florist drive-by. High on the list were things like: her father uncovering who was responsible so he could retaliate with accuracy, the police finding out who it was and why (the shop’s cover was busted wide open, thanks for that, shooter guy) and that she’d inevitably end up overseeing the staff in whatever new location was selected as a replacement. All of those things were basically a given. What she _hadn’t_ expected, though, was seeing Maggie ever again.

(And she has definitely _not_ secretly wanted to see her again. Nope.)

(She has.)

It seems that the only way they’re allowed to meet is accidentally.

“Oh god, sorry.”

Alex reaches out to steady the woman bundled up in winter appropriate clothes, a scarf conceals most of her features her chin is tucked so far down into it against the wind. The woman just barely keeps hold of her coffee. And when she looks up, peering past the bangs pushed down across her forehead by the beanie she’s wearing, Alex recognises her.

“Maggie?” Despite her rising tone, it’s more a statement of modest surprise than anything else.

For her part, Maggie’s whole face lights up. “Alex. Saved any nice girls lately?” _Her_ tone is decidedly teasing. Fond, weirdly enough, but teasing.

“Sadly no. I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

“You’re sorry for saving me?” She sounds disbelieving. (And maybe a little hurt?)

“God, no not for that.” Alex is pretty sure her eyes are comically wide. “That your shop got all shot up. You’re probably out a job, right? I’m sorry about all that.”

Maggie makes a ‘tch’ sound in the back of her throat and from the look on her face; she’s trying very hard not to laugh. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Alex doesn’t see the point in correcting her. Even if it hadn’t been her presence that prompted the attack it was still her family’s front and therefore definitely her fault – at least in part – that she nearly got shot. None of which seems important right now. Instead she asks, “You weren’t without a job too long, I hope?”

“No, actually.” And she looks so excited to explain that Alex doesn’t even realise she’s fallen into step beside her. “Floristry was never really my calling, it was just a good job to help pay off my student loans. I’m now working at the bakery and coffee shop over on Fifth.”

“You’re studying?”

Maggie hunches her shoulders up around her ears, dipping her nose back into her scarf as if embarrassed. “Pastry school, honestly. I’ve always wanted to be a pastry chef. My dad wanted me to be a cop. But… well…”

“There’s bullets involved in that,” Alex notes dryly.

“Ah, yeah,” Maggie laughs. “I’m not a fan of the getting shot at thing. Always hated not knowing if he’d be home, you know?”

Alex does, in fact, know that stomach-gnawing worry, but instead of going down that road she makes a vaguely agreeable sound and wonders, “So are you aiming to open your own shop?” And she doesn’t even ask as someone wanting to use the possibility as a cover for illicit trade opportunities. Amazing.

“Maybe. That’s a long way off yet.” Then she looks up at Alex and she’s so _painfully_ aware all of a sudden that she definitely should have walked away before. “And you? What do you do?”

Alex’s nose crinkles and she pulls a hand from her pocket to rub the back of her neck (regrets it instantly and shoves it back in). “Oh well… it’s boring really.”

“Accounting then,” Maggie assumes, face taking a mock serious cast.

In spite of herself, Alex starts laughing. “Hardly, though there is a bit of bookkeeping involved. No, I work for my father’s company. Mostly I just manage staff. There’s not much to it.”

“Ahh. A family business, that’s pretty cool.”

“It has its moments, I guess.”

Maggie bumps into her shoulder. “I bet it’s a hoot to work with family?”

“Oh yeah, a real blast.” She lays the sarcasm on thick and is rewarded when Maggie starts laughing. “Sometimes it’s fun, my sister is great to work with. Dad can be a bit of a downer though.”

“And funny co-worker stories, right?”

Alex casts her mind for something appropriate she can share. “Yeah sometimes,” she muses. “About a week ago one of my minions turns up to my office and tells me there’s an emergency in the storage bay. We’d just received a shipment and it was being unloaded. Now I personally give the safety warnings to each person we hire and I like to think I can be intimidating when I want to be.”

“I’m sure.” Maggie doesn’t sound convinced

“When I arrive, and to this day I have no idea how it happened, but the guy he was unloading with had actually managed to get his head stuck in the roof of the truck.” Alex waves a hand around her shoulders in an attempt to explain herself. “Like, he’d actually put his head through the roof and gotten stuck.”

“That’s incredible.” She barely manages to sound coherent around her laughter. “What happened to him?”

“My sister and I took a pair of bolt cutters to the roof of the truck to get him out,” she explains. “He spent the night in the hospital with serious lacerations to his neck and shoulders but he lived. I moved him to a desk job.”

“Probably in his best interests, really.”

“Absolutely, and now I get to hold him up to other employees as a fabulous example of what not to do.”

“Those are always good to have.” For a moment they walk in silence, Maggie constantly looking over at her as if maybe she thinks Alex won’t notice. “So I meant to ask, you didn’t want flowers that day you came in did you?”

Alex huffs. “No, I was just escaping the cold.”

“Okay good.”

“Why is that good?” she asks, eyebrows rising without permission.

Maggie arches a shoulder again. “See, I was just hoping you weren’t looking to buy flowers for someone, I suppose.”

“I don’t have anyone to buy flowers for,” Alex tells her softly. “Except my sister. I buy her flowers for her birthday because she gets really excited about them.”

“About flowers?”

“Oh yeah. Kara can make anything sound exciting.”’

Maggie just smiles. (Alex very obviously doesn’t notice the way her cheeks dimple.) “Well okay. So can I ask something?”

“Sure.”

“Let me do something to thank you,” Maggie tells her. Despite saying it would be a question, it’s very clearly not. “Let me take you to dinner. Please.”

Alex wavers. There’s a little voice telling her this is a bad idea, it cannot possibly end well, nothing ever does. It lists all the reasons why it’s right too; the danger, risks for her family, for Maggie, everything that could go wrong even if it seems completely ridiculous to her now. If it can go wrong, it will; the voice tells her. The list of cons rather significantly outweighs the pros.

And yet Alex still finds herself saying, “Okay. When and where?”

She hadn’t thought it even vaguely likely, but Maggie’s smile widens. “Great. How about Mason’s at seven?”

“Sounds good to me.” A strange tugging sensation coils around her stomach and latches on tight. Not fear or regret, though; it’s warm and tingly and strangely like anticipation.

 

*

 

“Earth to Alex.”

She blinks, looking up and across the table at her sister. Kara is leaning heavily on her elbows to facilitate the wild waving motion she’s making in front of Alex’s face. She swats at the offending hand and returns her gaze to the paperwork in front of her.

“You’re a little distracted today,” Kara observes. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” she replies tonelessly.

Their father, typically, chimes in without looking up. “You have been very quiet.”

She shrugs. “Look I’m just a little concerned about that shooting. We still don’t know who was behind it or why.”

Alex sneaks a glance at her father. A worried crease has appeared between his brows, a good indication that he’s been thinking along the same lines. “It’s only been three days,” he sighs. “We can’t expect everything to land in our laps.”

“My money is on the Luthors,” Kara adds. “We’ve had a couple of krypta shipments delayed, detained or straight up go missing in the last month. And you _know_ they’ve been trying to corner that market.”

“They’re not going to successfully remove us as competition by shooting up a few storehouses,” Alex points out. “If they’re behind it, they have more planned. But if it’s not them – and it’s hardly enough to satisfy their flair for the dramatic anyway – then who and what do we do about them?”

Kara rolls her eyes. “Well obviously we stop them.”

Jeremiah smiles softly, fondly, the tiniest upward lift to his lips (his only concession to smiles these days and Alex misses the times when he used to smile more). “Obviously. Why don’t you look into it, Kara? If it is the Luthors making a move we need to be ready.”

“I’m already on it,” Kara assures him brightly.

He finally lifts his eyes to look at Alex. “How’s our temporary way point going?”

She bobs her head, tapping one finger on the table, a clear indication that she’s dissatisfied. She stills her finger as soon as she notices. “Could be better. A couple of the boys are pretty shaken; they seem to think the Luthors are going to knock the back wall in any day now. We’re on time at least.”

“And how are our numbers looking?”

Alex slides the ledger she’s been transferring the new data into and shuffles a few of the other spreadsheets around so he could compare them. Being a part of a mob family isn’t all shoot outs and dangerous run-ins with the law. A lot of it is just boring. (She hadn’t been lying when she explained her job to Maggie.)

She jabs her finger at one column and Jeremiah squints at it through his spectacles. “We’re doing fine,” she tells him. “But this delay last week has put us a little behind. Also you’ll note that an alarming number of people owe us money this month.”

At that, Kara perks up. “Do we get to crack some heads?” She smacks one fist into the opposite palm for emphasis.

After a moment of absorbing the information before him, Jeremiah sighs. “Looks like you may have to, hon. That Lord fellow is getting too big for his breeches.”

“I told you we gave him too much leash,” Alex reminds him softly.

“Yes, well. I suppose he needs a gentle reminder.” The way Kara’s eyes flash prompts Jeremiah to reach across the table and pat her hand. “Gentle, honey. We don’t need to put him in the hospital. You can both go and pay him a visit tomorrow.”

“You got it, dad.”

“And is there more?”

Alex shakes her head. “Thankfully not. We even replaced that truck without any issue.”

“Good. The fellow was reassigned?”

“To somewhere he can’t break anything too badly, yes,” Alex exhales. She doesn’t know if he’s really worth the trouble of keeping but Jeremiah always insists on giving second chances.

He doesn’t bestow third chances, however.

She wonders how many chances she’s going to blow through if he finds out about her plans for the evening.

She then decides not to think about it.

Alex opens her mouth to tell him some bullshit story to excuse her absence but then changes her mind. He may not even notice she’s gone. She hopes he won’t. She hasn’t thought about a reason to be out of the house but with luck something will present itself.

Miraculously, it does, not five minutes later when their mother arrives with a gentle crease to her brow and a crumpled piece of paper in one hand.

“Jeremiah,” she says in her usual even tone. “There’s been a break in down by the docks. Someone looking for trouble, I’d say. We had boys there, thankfully, so nothing was taken, but it was one of our safe houses.”

He snaps to attention. “At the docks?”

“Yes.”

He rubs the tips of his fingers against his forehead, possibly fending off a migraine. “Seems like Kara might be right about the Luthors,” he muses.

“But how would they know about our krypta stores there?” Eliza asks the golden question really. How do the Luthors get any of their information?

Jeremiah fixes Kara with a pointed look. “I want you to spend the evening at our house in the north district. Keep an eye on things for me and if anyone shows up who shouldn’t…”

Kara’s fist connects with her palm again. The way her brow furrows, though, isn’t even a little bit scary. No one would ever believe what she did for a living. No one.

“And me?” Alex asks, feeling her heart sink irrationally at the idea that she’ll be too busy tonight to meet Maggie.

His finger taps softly against the ledger. And then, “Your townhouse over by the markets.”

Her eyebrows shoot up into her bangs so fast it’s a wonder they remain on her face. “Seriously? You put a krypta store _there_? It’s a public thoroughfare!” Which is part of why she almost never stays there.

Jeremiah closes his eyes very slowly. “It didn’t seem like we had any reason to worry at the time. But if the Luthors really are going to make a move then I want all avenues protected.”

Yeah, fair enough. But still. The markets were always busy. Like… always, even well into the night. Yes, even in winter (absurd given that so many shops are closed, really). Her stomach clenches. Maybe she will have to bail on Maggie.

But then Kara is rounding the table and grabbing her by the elbow. “Come on.” Then she’s being dragged out of the study and she barely has time to snatch her ledger from her father before her sister is jabbing her ribs to get her up the stairs.

“Kara!”

“Come _on_. I have to tell you something.”

She sighs. “If this is the boy toy of the hour…”

Kara snorts. “You should have more faith in me than that.”

“That Olsen guy lasted all of a month, Kara. My faith is shaken.”

“If I’m going to be in the north district all evening,” Kara starts, bounding into her bedroom and throwing open the doors to her closet to rummage around for clothes. “You know that means I can dress nicely and hang out with the fabulous people up there.”

Alex rolls her eyes. “You probably shouldn’t be doing that if you’re watching a krypta store.”

“Oh please, I know where all the krypta stores we own are and none of them are in the north district,” Kara laughs. “You forget that’s my particular area of interest. There are none by the markets either. They are _all_ at the docks. It’s the most logical place for them.”

“Then… why this?”

Kara shrugs, tossing a pink dress onto her bed and twirling around to find shoes. “I guess if he really thinks the Luthors are a threat of some kind he might try and throw them off, right? You and I are the best assets he has; it would stand to reason that where we go are the valuable things.”

“Misdirection,” Alex realises. “Okay.”

Kara pauses in her whirlwind progress around the room and grabs Alex by the shoulders. “I know you are a serious person, sis. I know you put the family before everything else.” She claps her hands against Alex’s shoulders. “But tonight you will be babysitting an empty townhouse. Maybe you could enjoy yourself a little.”

“I’ll take the best bottle of wine I can find,” she says flatly.

Her sister just laughs. “That’s the spirit. Now. If _I_ have a hot date, what do you recommend? Pink or black?”

She spends another half hour debating the pros and cons of dress colour and cut before Kara eventually settles on the little red number that Alex knew she would. Whoever he was, he was in for one hell of a night.

 

*

 

“I wasn’t sure you’d actually show.”

Alex starts, spins, and relaxes when she realises it is just Maggie. She’s in a modest black dress and that is a huge relief to Alex who had spent at least an hour panicking because she didn’t have a clue what Mason’s dress code was. No worries there at least.

(And she does her best not to stare too long or notice exactly how nice Maggie looks dressed up.)

(Newsflash: she fails miserably on both accounts.)

“People who stand up pretty girls are monsters,” Alex opines, laughing. And then she realises what she’s said and starts panicking. Again.

Luckily, Maggie just laughs with her. “Well that’s sweet, but obligation isn’t the best reason to turn up to things.”

“Really? Wow, now I have to question why I do anything.”

Maggie doesn’t stop smiling, but the little tilt to her head gives away her curiosity.

“Family before all else,” is the only (cryptic) reply Alex feels comfortable with in the moment. “Shall we?”

“Yes. Have you eaten here before?”

Alex shakes her head. “I don’t eat out much, I’m afraid.”

The sparkle in Maggie’s eyes tells her she said something funny but she can’t figure out what and she’s clearly not about to be enlightened. “Shame,” Maggie chuckles. “It’s basically my favourite restaurant in town. Some nights they even let me in when I’m not dressed so nicely.”

She just barely bites down on the instinct to tell Maggie that she probably _always_ looks nice. “That’s definitely a point to them,” she says instead.

The woman at the door smiles, probably recognising Maggie, Alex thinks, judging by how they’re greeted. She seats them right away, though, so Alex doesn’t bother wondering about the weird way the hostess looks at her. Definitely not worth the worry.

Once they’re seated – at a table by a window with a view of the gardens – Maggie says, “So you have a sister.”

Alex nods. “Yeah, little sister. Though not _super_ little. She’s twenty-three.”

“I always wanted a sister,” Maggie tells her. “Or a brother, maybe.”

“Only child?”

She bobs her head. “Most people tell me I’m lucky.”

“Most people seem to think it’s weird to get along with your siblings,” Alex adds flatly. “Kara’s a pain sometimes, but I wouldn’t ever want to get rid of her.”

“You said she works with you, right?”

“Sometimes, she’s better at inventory than I am.” Alex pauses to think about that. “Actually I think the reason she gets to do that has more to do with her trying to be friends with all our staff.”

Maggie just laughs. “So what does your family business do, anyway?”

“Oh, um.” And this is why making friends is a Bad Idea™. “Shipping. We have a couple of warehouses. It’s mostly run from home. My dad’s home.”

As if her stilted bullshitted sentences make complete sense, Maggie nods. “Do you ever get to like… keep stuff? You know, the things that don’t get delivered or end up in storage limbo?”

Alex blinks. “Not… usually. Although Kara did get a new widescreen earlier in the year that I suspect maybe wasn’t… strictly… hers?” She looks away, knowing full well that the television wasn’t Kara’s and how she’d gotten it. But Maggie keeps laughing.

“Excellent. My dad lost something in the post once and it never turned up anywhere,” she explains. “He kept telling me that the shipping people must have kept it, but I could never understand why anyone would want a defective watch.”

“What was he ordering a broken watch for?”

Maggie shrugs. “Something about it being vintage?”

“But… broken?”

“Right. He seemed to think he’d be able to get parts for it. Mum made him buy a new watch.”

Alex smiles. “You said he’s with the police?”

She hums. “Not here. He and mum live across the country. But yeah, he was a detective for ages. Mum was relieved when he retired. So was I, honestly. I can’t imagine being with someone who has a dangerous job, you know? He insisted I take self-defence classes though. A girl has to be able to protect herself.”

Again, Alex looks away, pretending to search for a waiter. She’s weirdly relieved that Maggie’s dad isn’t an active cop in the city. That definitely would’ve been a conflict of interests. “Yeah, must be hard. Although to be fair, you were a florist and nearly got shot.”

“And your delivery guy put his head through a truck. Nothing is truly safe.” Alex decides right then that she likes the teasing smile Maggie’s wearing. Also that this was most definitely a bad idea.

“What does your mum do?”

“She is an early childhood teacher; works with little preppie kids.” Maggie beams. “They are _so cute_ , she sends me photos at Christmas of her class for the year and they’re just so adorable.”

Alex’s eyes dart away again but at least this time they locate a waiter. Maggie tracks the direction of her gaze and the next thing Alex knows, they’ve ordered food. She’s about to say something about how Maggie can actually ask someone at this restaurant for ‘her usual’ but doesn’t get the chance.

“You look a little uncomfortable,” Maggie notes.

“Oh.” She tries laughing but knows it’s never going to work. “Well, I don’t go out much.” _Ever_ , she corrects mentally.

Maggie’s eyebrows both lift. “For real? What do you do with yourself?”

“Mostly just work,” Alex replies, brow furrowing in thought. What _does_ she do? “That doesn’t leave me with much free time and what I do get I spend with my sister. She’s my best friend.”

“Wow. Okay. Do you ever _want_ to do things? Hang with other people?”

Did she? “Sometimes.” A self-deprecating smile quirks her mouth and she leans across the table as though imparting a secret. “I wouldn’t have a clue where to start, though. I guess at this point… it’s just habit.”

“Maybe,” Maggie begins, leaning forward herself. “You need some new habits?”

In spite of herself, Alex smiles. “Maybe you’re right. And where do you suggest I start?”

“How about, at least once a week, you get out of the house and do something fun,” Maggie suggests, a funny glint to her eyes.

Alex makes a thoughtful noise. “I’m not sure. I’m a little uninformed on things that are fun, at this point.” She’s honestly not sure whether she wants Maggie to suggest they meet up again, or if she wants the whole thing to end right here like this so she can go back to her routine. The latter would probably be better. Healthier.

“Well.” Maggie pauses as if whatever she’s thought of suddenly didn’t seem like the best thing to say. She bites her lip. Alex really tries not to watch the motion. “ _Well_ ,” she repeats, “Perhaps I can help you out. After all, I do know some fun things to do in town.”

Once again, something about that has a stuttering sensation bubbling low in Alex’s stomach. And regardless that she’d just decided it to be healthier to walk away, she still says, “Alright then.”

 

*

 

She leaves the restaurant later and walks Maggie home; it’s not far, an apartment building near the park. Alex doesn’t follow her up, but she stands on the footpath for ten minutes after Maggie has gone inside staring at her phone where her number blinks softly in the darkness.

When she makes it back to the townhouse she leaves the best bottle of wine on the stand where it lives. Instead, wearing her softest pyjamas, she curls up on the couch with hot chocolate and watches trashy television until she falls asleep.

It’s different.

She doesn’t know how she feels about that yet.

Doesn’t know if she wants to find out.

(She does.)

 

*

 

A banging wakes her hours later. There’s no light outside the window, no sunlight anyway, it’s still night. Her phone reads a bit after two.

The gun she left on the coffee table is in her hands in seconds and she spends only the briefest of moments regretting putting her pyjamas on. Some hardass mobster she is in flannels with a dinosaur print. (But that’s lightyears more dignified than Kara’s adorable duck pyjamas so, whatever.)

The first thing she does is check the alarm system. It hasn’t been triggered, so either there’s nothing wrong or these people are good. Second, she steps warily up the stairs, gun held low in front of her. None of the windows along the front corridor have been tampered with and the master suite door is locked from the outside. She has no idea where the key is so even if someone is in there they’re not getting out.

She moves along the corridor checking doors as she goes. No one is there and all the entry points are secure. The room at the end, the one she should have been asleep in, is the last she investigates.

The window on the far side is ajar just slightly and Alex lifts her gun. She slides into the room, keeping her back to the wall. It’s dim and her eyes struggle to make out any detail thanks to the street lights beyond the window.

Slowly, she presses the door shut with her heel. Before it’s half way closed, though, someone moves from behind it. The edge of the door hits her shoulder and she stumbles, arms lowering momentarily.

A bald man in a black face mask – like the one worn by the drive-by shooter at the florist – circles her and she lashes out with a leg. She clips his ankle and he staggers but doesn’t fall. He throws a hand out to steady himself and Alex whips her gun back up.

She can’t get a bead on him though; he drops and rolls towards the window, only righting himself to swing up onto the sill. In that moment he cuts a nice sharp silhouette against the lights outside and she pulls the trigger twice. Then he’s throwing himself out the window and disappearing from sight.

With two quick strides, Alex is over at the window, peering into the night trying to pick him out. It takes a moment, but she spots him across the street, hurrying along the footpath. It looks like he’s got one hand up against his side.

She hopes he was hit. Serves him right to break into their house.

He’s gone around a corner then and Alex turns, doing a quick search of the room for any clues he might have left. She comes up empty. A swift sweep of the house indicates that nothing else has been disturbed. He must have come in through that window and not made any progress.

It wouldn’t have mattered, she doesn’t suppose, there’s nothing there to be found. But at least this way, he might be back. Alex hopes he tries again.

She won’t miss next time.

 

*

 

The next three weeks are almost entirely incident free. (That one guy who put his head through the truck roof staples himself to his desk and Jeremiah, with a long-suffering sigh, has him liquidated. Alex hates those jobs.) But the rest is just fine.

A few times, men in those black plastic masks make passes at stores or safe houses, but they only ever seem to be testing. They push and when they meet resistance they bail. It makes Alex worry but Kara seems to thrive on the quick release skirmishing.

She also sees Maggie five times in that period. Or rather, they have five… _arranged outings_ (Alex hesitates to call them dates but also she’s beginning to want exactly that), including one where Alex makes it inside Maggie’s apartment. It’s small, one bedroom, but it’s decorated with photos and has a distinctly lived in feel that Alex instantly loves. It makes her feel a little nauseous actually because the townhouse she’s been camping in lately is technically hers (at least it has her name on the paperwork) but has almost no indication of being a home.

And that’s exactly what Maggie’s apartment feels like: a _home_. She doesn’t stay long the first time.

Other than those five instances though, Alex also starts making a habit of dropping by the bakery where Maggie works. Sometimes she brings lunch, sometimes if it’s late afternoon she hangs around until closing and they go to dinner. These are not ‘arranged’ and somehow they’re completely different in Alex’s head despite feeling basically the same.

Only once does Alex take Maggie to a shop she can safely label her place of work without raising suspicions. Maggie knows there are several places in the city that her family ‘owns’ and works from, but the little single-storey office building on the docks is harmless. It backs onto one of their warehouses and is used mostly as a place for filing and accounting work.

Maggie sits on a swivel chair the whole time they’re there watching Alex fill out the few papers that needed doing that day. She also asks loudly about the guy who had the truck incident. The two guys on rotation at the time exchange looks and then laugh uproariously. Maggie just beams a winning dimpled smile and spins her chair around.

(They don’t stay long. It doesn’t take much to convince Maggie that her job really is quite boring.)

Kara notices something is up eventually. She always does. But she’s a little preoccupied too, between monitoring the krypta stores and tracking down those responsible for the recent hits, Alex doesn’t know how Kara has time for a _someone_ (because that’s clearly what it is, she knows her sister well enough to pick that up at least). She’s managing just fine, all the same.

Alex thinks there might be something different for Kara and whoever she’s been seeing. Nothing she can prove, but something seems… off. She tries not to let it bother her. The more interest she shows in Kara’s life, the more likely she is to draw attention to… Maggie… and… well whatever is going on with her.

And Alex is growing increasingly sure that something most definitely is going on.

She thinks maybe she should figure out what.

Her phone beeps as she steps out of her father’s house, screen lighting up with Maggie’s name. _I’m not feeling an outing tonight. Can we stay home and order in?_

The casual phrasing of that does a weird thing to Alex’s heart like it’s suddenly clinging fiercely to her windpipe and refusing to beat. She has no idea why.

Hastily she texts back, _Sure, my place or yours?_

She’s aiming for a teasing tone but isn’t sure she conveyed it right. Kara would know exactly the emoji to tack on the end to get the tone right. For a moment she waits on the sidewalk, but when she doesn’t get a reply her feet start carrying her towards the bakery.

Alex is almost at the store before her phone beeps again. The long delay isn’t cause for worry. It’s not.

 _I haven’t seen your place_ , the text reads. Even as Alex is reading it another text pops up. _Unless you’d rather my place?_

She dithers for a moment, feet shuffling anxiously. There isn’t really a reason she can’t take Maggie to the townhouse. Her fingers type a message but she still hesitates to hit send. When she does, she sighs.

It startles her to hear Maggie’s phone beep and her head jerks up. “Your place it is then,” Maggie laughs, stopping in front of her. “Closed early today,” she explains. “The boss’s son is performing in an orchestra this evening and she was feeling especially nice.”

Alex feels a smile bloom on her face without really expecting it. She should’ve, Maggie has that power over her. It’s not even horrible.

“Alright. And what are we ordering?”

Maggie taps her phone against her palm. “I can order Thai now; from that shop a few blocks that way?”

“Sounds good to me. That’s on the way to my place anyway; maybe we can pick it up as we go.”

She laughs as she dials and Alex thinks it’s amazing that she knows the number by heart. “We’re walking are we?”

“Unless you have a secret car?”

Maggie rolls her eyes. They both have motorbikes, Alex knows this. And while that’s fine, Alex hadn’t brought hers with because it wasn’t far enough to be worth the effort. It’s still parked at the townhouse.

“So how was your day?” Alex asks once Maggie has hung up.

“Not bad actually. I had one of my cake exams this morning and totally nailed it,” Maggie tells her happily. “And then just a half shift this afternoon.”

“I will never stop finding ‘cake exam’ funny, just so you know,” Alex informs her.

Maggie sways over to bump her shoulder. “What about you? Any boring paperwork today?”

“No actually,” she replies, bumping into Maggie in faux payback. “This morning my sister and I supervised a single shipment and then played cards.”

To prevent any more playful bumping, Maggie loops her arm through Alex’s elbow and stuffs her hands into her jacket pockets, essentially locking them together. “Did you win?”

“Nah, Kara’s really good at cards, she crushed me.” Her voice trembles just a little but there’s nothing she can do about it.

Luckily, Maggie doesn’t seem to notice. She launches into a story about some guy in her cake class. He’s been a recurring character over the last few weeks. His first appearance made Alex’s nose wrinkle since apparently he makes jokes about women in the kitchen which… really? In this day and age? Today the story is about how he can’t ice words onto the cakes and he thought it would be a good idea to flirt with Maggie to see if he could get her to do it for him.

“It was an _exam_ ,” Maggie stresses. “He flirted with me to try and do his _exam_ for him.”

“I can punch him in the nose if you want?” Alex offers. And it’s a perfectly serious offer too. She would be only too happy.

Maggie starts laughing though. Her arm squeezes around Alex’s and she turns this beautiful blinding smile on her as if the very idea is just… completely ludicrous.

“Oh I would love to see that,” she says around her laughter. Her free hand reaches up to prod Alex in the ribs. “Miss Paperwork.”

And maybe – just _maybe­_ – Alex is as hard to imagine as a gangster as Kara. The notion staggers her a little. Maggie only lets go of her arm to collect the Thai they ordered. Alex insists on paying, which is totally what she will cite as a reason for why Maggie loops their arms together when they step outside. There’s no other reason. There can’t be.

When they stop outside the townhouse so Alex can unlock the door, Maggie takes a step back and stares up at it.

“When you said _townhouse_ ,” she breathes. “This isn’t quite what I had in mind.”

And sure, it’s probably not. It’s a lot bigger than most townhouses. Only two storeys, but wider and deeper. It is also not actually joined to its neighbour. The house sits on the end of the street, the corner, and the side where it meets the next house is actually all garage. Even though it’s two storeys, the whole area is dedicated only to the garage. It should hold two cars, but all that’s in there at the moment is Alex’s bike and a few empty boxes. And also it’s currently doubling as a wine cellar, mostly because Alex is much too lazy to walk down to the cellar.

“Yeah. It wasn’t what I expected when I first saw it either,” she agrees. “The layout here is nice though. The neighbours are never a problem, it’s great.”

“Shipping, huh… must be a good business.”

Alex just laughs and lets Maggie precede her through the front door. She dithers at the door, locking it behind her slowly, fiddling with her keys, unsure what to do. Eventually she just turns to see what Maggie’s reaction is.

And it’s… not weird. Maggie notes the sparse décor and when Alex explains that she hasn’t really moved in and doesn’t own much stuff anyway she gets an accepting nod and that’s the end. Probably not surprising, Alex hasn’t exactly been subtle with how little life she has outside her family.

So they collapse onto the couch and eat, it’s nice, comfortable. Mundane. Alex learned a while ago that Maggie enjoys cop shows, in spite of her father, but she also enjoys picking them apart at the seams.

All the, “They don’t hold their guns like that. It’s not safe.” And, “There is no way they’d let that guy set those terms. Not after what happened. Guys like that don’t get that sort of consideration.” Along with the occasional, “Because cops are _allowed_ to break into apartments no questions asked. Don’t these people know that completely voids the evidence as useful?”

Normally, Alex can’t abide when people speak through television, but honestly she thinks it’s sort of adorable how involved Maggie gets. (Plus, yeah, some of those things annoy her too, no lie.) Not to mention that when Maggie sort of… sags across the couch so her head is on Alex’s shoulder… Well she has no desire at that point to do anything at all.

“You can stay the night, if you like,” Alex mutters. “There’s a guest room.”

“I’m not sleeping in jeans and I don’t have a change of clothes,” Maggie reminds her, voice blurry. “I’ll just walk home.”

Alex blinks. “In this weather? Just…” Her voice catches so she tries again. “Just stay.”

At first, Maggie doesn’t say anything. Then she sighs and turns her face against Alex’s shoulder. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, of course. I’m sure there’s something you can wear that isn’t jeans.”

She hums. “Alright then. What time is it?”

“A bit after nine. Why?”

“I have an early class.”

Alex laughs, but she wiggles out from under Maggie anyway and pulls her to her feet. “Let’s get you to sleep then, grandma.”

“Taunt me,” Maggie mumbles. “But I can and will wake you at five when I get up to go.”

Maggie holds onto her hand as Alex leads her up the stairs and down the hall to her room. Alex doesn’t know whether it’s because she is _that_ tired or for some other reason. But either way it’s nice, and her heart skips a beat or twelve when she thinks it.

After taking five seconds to remember where she’s hidden her gun (locked in the safe under her desk), Alex points Maggie at a drawer. “There are shirts and pants in there; you can take your pick. I’ll make sure the heating is on.”

“Oh…” Maggie laughs. “This is too cute.” Alex turns to see her holding up a pair of flannel pants with a kitten print. (She has a lot of patterned pyjamas thanks to Kara, okay.) “Where is the shirt?”

Alex laughs with her. “The shirt had an unfortunate encounter with spray paint once and I threw it out.”

“What a tragedy.” She goes back to looking and Alex steps out to prepare the guest room.

There are sheets on the bed already, so she draws the curtains down and makes sure the room is being heated. She doesn’t think there’s anything in the guest room that would be incriminating at all but does a cursory check anyway. It’s best to be safe.

She even ducks into the bathroom quickly to bring a towel back in case Maggie wants to shower in the morning. Her hands are fiddling with the folds when Maggie arrives. Not that Alex notices immediately. Instead she nearly leaps out of her skin when she turns and finds her standing in the doorway, watching, with a funny little quirk to her lips.

“Jesus,” Alex huffs. She doesn’t miss the ‘hello sunshine’ shirt Maggie has chosen to wear.

“Sorry. You looked lost in thought.”

“Oh.” But whatever she might’ve been going to say dies in her throat. Because there’s something about Maggie’s smile, about how she’s standing there in Alex’s clothes. There’s just _something_ and she can’t speak. “Yeah. A little.”

Maggie’s smile tips up a little higher. “Anything important?”

She hums. “Yes.”

“If you’re thinking about work you don’t get to make jokes anymore about me being a considerate student.”

Surprisingly, “It’s not work.” Oh no, not work at all. Although her heart is beating as if she’s recently done some sort of intense physical exertion. So there’s that.

Maggie crosses the room, her eyes catching on the bedspread (floral, not an animal print). When she looks up her expression is soft. “I thought you said you didn’t have anything important that wasn’t family?” Maggie muses.

“I thought you said you wanted to change that.” Her voice sounds funny.

“I did,” Maggie agrees. “But how do I know what’s important to you unless you tell me?”

Before she can really think about it too hard she says, “You’re important.” Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, there’s a little voice telling her that’s a mistake. It worms its way into her stomach and settles in, but right then, Alex can’t bring herself to care.

Actually her brain doesn’t seem capable of much at the present. Not with Maggie looking at her like _that_ and standing so _close_ and… She’s like, ninety percent certain Maggie has hooked her fingers into the hem of her shirt but Alex can’t look away from her eyes to check. It’s turning into a problem.

Alex shuffles, a little uncertainly, heart still stuck in her throat. “Can I…?” Maggie tilts her head to the side just slightly, but it’s like she knows what Alex means. Her fingers tighten a little in the shirt and Alex swallows. “Can I kiss you?”

Maggie’s nodding, but the actual answer is probably more in how she pulls Alex forward by the grip she has on the shirt. At first it’s soft, feather-light; which is fine because it takes Alex longer than it maybe should for her to realise what’s happening. When it does finally click that – wow – Maggie is honest to god kissing her, she sighs.

(The little voice that had been telling her it’s a bad idea is completely forgotten.)

Very gently, Maggie’s hands find her face, smoothing her thumb across Alex’s cheek and pushing hair behind her ear. She leans into it, fingers dancing above Maggie’s hips, uncertain. But Maggie just pulls her closer until there is likely no space left between them at all and she has to hold on or she’ll most definitely fall.

It takes a moment. Maggie leans away but not very far, and even though she does she keeps dropping soft kisses on Alex’s mouth and she doesn’t really have an issue with it. She does still feel a little stunned though. Her hands come up absently to sweep hair out of Maggie’s eyes and tuck it behind her ears. She leans back in slowly to kiss her again and she can feel when Maggie starts smiling.

“Alright?” Maggie asks softly.

Alex can only hum. “Very.”

Then Maggie’s laughing and wrapping her arms around Alex’s neck, tucking her face into her shoulder. “Good.” She waits for a beat, fingers fiddling with the short hair at the base of Alex’s neck. “Stay with me?”

“Oh, um. No, that’s fine.”

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Relax. Not what I meant. But…” She must have to pause to think about a reasonable excuse. “It’s cold.”

And Alex has to fight not to laugh because really? There are plenty of blankets and the heating is on. Any warmer and it’d be sub-tropical.

Still, she hears herself agree. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve fallen asleep together but there’s something different now and Alex doesn’t want to push it. So yeah, she leaves plenty of space, not wanting to do just that. But Maggie just laughs and says something about ‘sleep hugs’ and somehow that relaxes her a little.

That is essentially exactly what it is anyway.

Maggie presses a kiss to her temple and seems to immediately fall asleep, one arm around Alex’s middle. It’s sort of weird, she thinks. But in a nice way.

So for now she decides not to think to hard (ha!) about it. Still takes her ages to sleep though.

 

*

 

Maggie isn’t there in the morning.

Alex didn’t even feel her move. Impressive, honestly. The towel and borrowed pyjama pants are folded up on the bookshelf again, a note resting on top.

 _Sorry, had to go to class. I used your shower and your coffee pot. Text me when you’re up. And I’m totally keeping the sunshine shirt; I bet you’ve never even worn it_.

There is even a little heart at the bottom and Alex could just die. So that all really happened. She buries her face in her pillow.

Once she’s managed to gather herself together she grabs her phone off the nightstand and replies, _Study hard. You are right; I’ve worn the shirt like four times ever_.

Maggie texts back almost instantly. _Why do you have it if you don’t wear it_?

 _It was a gift from Kara. I figured I should keep it_.

 _Will she mind that I’ve got it_?

And would she? Yes, probably, but not for the reasons Maggie imagines. Alex doesn’t know what Maggie might imagine but that won’t be it. Still, she responds with, _She’s not allowed to mind_.

She gets up then, she has to meet her dad and make some arrangements for a job later in the week. And she should probably check in with Kara on those masked men who’ve been harassing their stores. It’s been too quiet and she can feel something bigger coming.

 

*

 

“Where’s your sister?”

Jeremiah’s first words to her when she steps into his study are not what she was expecting. She pauses, hand still on the door knob. “She’s not here?”

“She went out last night. Said she had some housekeeping to do.”

Alex shrugs. “I have no idea; I was at home all last night.”

“The townhouse?”

“Yes,” she agrees, bobbing her head. “Still no activity though. I’m starting to worry they know it’s misdirection.”

He shakes his head just a little. “How could they know that? The only people who know are the four of us.”

“And the men who do the moving.”

He bats her words away. “They don’t know what they’re moving. Kara keeps the krypta stores very quiet.”

It’s then that Kara bursts through the door. “Sorry I’m late. I overslept.”

“Late night?” Alex teases but Kara just beams at her.

“So what’s today’s crisis?” she asks, collapsing into her usual seat.

“How have your investigations gone?” Jeremiah puts to them first.

Alex just shrugs. “Nothing on my end.” And there hasn’t been. The quiet feelers she put out turned up completely empty. If it was the Luthors hitting them, they’ve covered themselves well.

He turns his eyes on Kara. “Oh, well. It’s almost certainly the Luthors and I’m pretty convinced they’re going to hit the docks later in the week. Or next week.”

“How did you come to that conclusion?” Jeremiah asks and honestly Alex wants to know too.

She goes red. “Okay, so. A while ago in the north district I met a very nice young businesswoman. She gets _invites_ to all these fancy parties around the city? Anyway, we’ve been going to them together and that Lex guy is at most of them. I may have done a bit of sneaking into places I shouldn’t and eavesdropping. Last night he was at a party talking to some other woman and he mentioned ‘hitting the docks’ which I assume means us.”

Alex slumps backwards into her chair. “Huh.”

Jeremiah, however, fixes Kara with a very pointed look. “Be careful,” he warns her. And they both know exactly what he means. Relationships are dangerous.

Kara merely smiles brightly and nods.

He rubs a finger along his jaw as he thinks, finally musing, “You know that old mechanic’s place by the exit to the highway near midtown?” They both nod. “It’s a Luthor checkpoint for trucks. I want the two of you watching it tomorrow night. Eliza says they usually get their deliveries on Tuesday evenings.”

“You got it dad,” Kara replies happily.

Alex only nods. Internally, she’s making a mental note to cancel the plans she had with Maggie.

They move on to other, less exciting, management tasks then. With only a month left in winter, they have to look into hiring a few more hands to deal with the tourist rush. There are a few outstanding fees owed by businesses and individuals around town, so she and Kara divvy them up, figuring with two people they could probably be done by the end of the day. And of course another discussion about the Luthors.

Eliza seems to feel that they could just let the Luthors take the krypta markets. What would it matter? They have plenty of other avenues. Alex is more inclined to agree with her father, though; it’s a lucrative area and if the Luthors get a stranglehold they’ll become very powerful. Perhaps too powerful to contend with. The results could be bloody. It’s best to keep them engaged for now.

“There’s also a delivery of gold arriving this weekend,” Jeremiah tells them. “It would be nice if you could both be present to oversee the acquisition.” He says it like they’re not robbing the bank’s armoured trucks. “Try to get them before they reach the vault this time.” Kara rolls her eyes but they delay last time had made it much harder than strictly necessary.

And of course, Eliza made sure to have a few plans for family dinners. Alex added another night to her list of evenings to apologise to Maggie for. Life would be much easier if her family wasn’t criminals, she thinks. It’s not a thought that often crosses her mind, but it’s no less true for that.

The idea of stepping away from it though? Unthinkable.

 

*

 

 _You sure you don’t want me to swing by_?

 _No thank you, it’s fine_.

 _I can pick up ice cream_?

Alex tries not to smile too widely at her phone and fails. _Or I can pick it up on the way home_?

 _So you really don’t want distractions? It sounds boring_.

 _Oh believe me, it is. But the fewer distractions the faster it’ll get done_.

 _Maybe I should stop texting you then_ …

 _Ha ha_.

Maggie doesn’t immediately reply, no doubt to make her point. Whatever it might be. But before Alex can think too much on it, Kara is leaning across the cab to peer at her phone.

“Who are you smiling at? Who’s Maggie?”

She hastily presses the phone screen against her chest; the car darkens considerably at the action. “You know what? I’ll tell you when you tell me who Lynch is.”

Kara sits back. “Excuse you? Stalking my phone are we?”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Oh please. It sits on the table and buzzes. The name is right there to be seen.”

Even in the near darkness of the car, Alex is sure Kara’s face goes bright red. “Well… She’s… a friend.”

“Your businesswoman friend?” Alex teases, leaning over to prod at her ribs.

Kara squawks, swatting at her hand. “Get off! Yes, fine. Yes. You’re so nosey.”

“Says you.”

“Tell me!” She bounces up and down in her seat, shaking Alex’s arm as if that’s what will convince her.

“You are the actual worst,” she sighs. “Fine, you remember that shooting at the florist?”

“Yeah?”

“Maggie was the florist. We’ve been… Hanging out, I guess?”

Kara’s eyebrows shoot up. “In a friends kinda way or…?”

“I don’t know, Kara. In what kind of way do you hang out with businesswoman Lynch?”

“In the safe way. She doesn’t know who I am or what I do for a living. She just knows that I enjoy a nice cocktail dress.” There is a weird tone to Kara’s voice when she speaks. It’s almost… bitter.

“Well… same. But without the cocktail dress.”

Kara leans in until her chin is propped on Alex’s arm. “You’re being careful right? If she learns too much or you get too attached…”

“I know, I know. Family first.”

“And if Maggie ends up on the pointy end of another shooting but you have responsibilities elsewhere?”

Ouch, a low question. She’s sure the way her face scrunches up reflects her opinion there. “I know,” she exhales. “I’m careful. And what about you, huh? Lynch might be friends with the Luthors, she could be a leak for all you know.”

Kara waves her away. “Psh. She passionately hates them. It actually took me a lot of convincing to get her to go to that party last night. She doesn’t want to be in the same room as a Luthor, she wouldn’t tell them squat.”

Alex levels a cautionary look at her and she rolls her eyes again.

“I’m careful, sis. I _promise_. Family first, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

And that is the one thing that grates most.

Her phone at last beeps with a reply from Maggie but at the same time (how lovely) the deliveries they’ve been watching for arrive. Kara immediately whips binoculars up to her eyes, squinting down the street at them. There are three; big white trucks with no logos or other identifying marks on the sides.

“There are two guys in each,” Kara commentates. “So we’re definitely not getting any closer. Hey! I know that guy.”

“They’re not wearing face masks?” Alex is honestly surprised by it.

“A couple of them are. Probably the paranoid ones.” She passes Alex the binoculars so she can see. “The tall bald guy? He was at the party the other night. That is Lex Luthor. Heir to the Luthor’s criminal fortune. I hear he’s brilliant.”

Alex hums. “I’ve heard mad more than brilliant.”

Kara bobs her head. “Tomatoes, tomatoes.”

She passes the binoculars back, more than happy to let Kara scout the whole party. They’re quiet for a while, but then Kara says, “Do you ever think about what we do?”

“All the time,” Alex tells her flatly. “It’s my job.”

“No I mean.” She lowers the binoculars for a moment. “The stealing and blackmail and all that.”

“Having a moral crisis?”

Kara shrugs, lifting the lenses again. “Sometimes I just wonder why we bother, is all. The shipping – the _legal­_ shipping – we do is perfectly lucrative on its own. Sometimes I just… think we could do without the drama.”

For a long moment Alex doesn’t reply. Kara doesn’t seem to need her to, not obviously, but Alex can tell from the slant of her shoulders that she would like to hear something, anything, reassuring.

“Yeah,” she relents softly. “I do wonder.”

“Really?”

“Well… I get why dad persists, you know? Someone’s going to do this; it might as well be him?”

“Sure. But why does it also have to be _us_? The trucks are all carrying krypta, by the way. Loads of it. I’m guessing this is our missing shipment. Bastards.”

Alex sighs. “So we can go then.”

Kara hums an affirmative. “And my question?” she asks, barely audible over Alex cranking the engine to life.

“I suppose it’s just our lot. At least we don’t mess with the drugs we sell, you know?”

“But people do.”

Alex leaves the car running but makes no move to drive away. She turns to her sister. “Kara. Do you… want to leave?”

Kara exhales heavily, head thumping back against the headrest. “I just… watch other people, and they have friends, hobbies, loved ones, _lives_. I want that. But I don’t want to worry about bringing some gang dispute down on other people? I want to not be afraid that I’ll hurt those around me accidentally. Does that make sense?”

After another long beat of just the engine whirring, Alex pulls them away from the curb. “Yeah,” she mutters. “I get it.”

What she doesn’t say is, _I want it too_.

 

*

 

And, the more she reflects on that conversation with Kara, the more she realises that really, she and her sister? They don’t _do_ a great deal of the stereotypical gang stuff. Jeremiah has always held them above it. Sure they ‘talk’ to people who owe them money now and again (and sometimes they get to beat folks up). And _sure_ , they’re both managing criminal activities; Kara oversees all their drugs and Alex maintains their fronts. Sure. They are both criminals. But the shooting and the robbery is mostly left to others.

They’re… supervisory criminals.

For about four days Alex stews on that thought, wondering if perhaps their dad kept them away from it for a reason. Maybe hoping one day they wouldn’t have to be here anymore. Where they’d go – and what they’d do – are beyond her though.

It’s a hopeful thought though. Probably. (Actually she’s just very conflicted about it.)

Still, that’s what she’s thinking about when she knocks on Maggie’s apartment door. Maybe not the best thing to have stuck in her brain, but whatever. It completely evaporates when Maggie’s door is not only unlocked but ajar, and swings in under her fist.

At first she’s not sure what it means. But then she steps in and the whole apartment has been upended. Her mother used to say Kara’s room look like a tornado hit it, and that same analogy feels pretty applicable here.

Worse, she left her gun on her bike. (It has never seemed like a good idea to advertise that she has it. Not with Maggie.)

There are bits of wooden dining chair everywhere, and the couches have been tipped over. One is missing both its cushions. Photos are at odd angles, or missing entirely, and Maggie’s leather jacket is lying in a puddle by the door.

There’s a loud beeping and Alex jerks around, once again reaching for a firearm that isn’t there. The fridge door is open and whining about it. Despite the fact that it seems stupid to do so, Alex crosses the kitchen to push it shut.

Maggie’s keys are sprawled on the island, along with her bag. Her laptop is on the bench beside it, closed.

This, Alex realises, is bad.

She texts Kara with shaking fingers. _I need you_.

It takes all of five seconds to get a reply. _Where_?

She sends the address and shuffles numbly about the apartment, picking things up. Righting couches and throwing all the bits of chair into the bin only help so much. Worry gnaws at her stomach and she decides that maybe Kara was right and she should’ve taken the silent advice to stop seeing Maggie. She can only find one of the couch cushions.

When Kara pushes the door in about six minutes later Alex nearly dies of shock. And when Kara quietly walks over and wraps her in a hug she realises how close to tears she is. It takes a lot to bite them back once she notices the urge to cry vibrating in her ribs. She holds a little tighter to Kara than she means to.

“No message?” Kara asks into her shoulder.

“No.” Her voice is hoarse.

She thinks Kara might be about to make another suggestion (the obvious suggestion), but Alex’s phone beeps. The screen flashes with Maggie’s name and she thinks she may very well die of relief. But the message isn’t written like Maggie types. It’s… brusque, short clipped sentences.

 _We have her. Send store locations. You have four hours_.

Also that message is incredibly ominous, nothing at all like something Maggie would send.

“The Luthors,” Kara breathes, reading over her shoulder. “I think I might know where she is.”

“How did they even know about her?” Alex wonders. “I’ve been so careful. _She_ doesn’t even know.”

Kara shakes her head and grabs Maggie’s keys off the island before tossing them at Alex. “Doesn’t matter now, they have her. Let’s go get her back. Do you have a gun?”

“On my bike.”

“I’ll have to ride shotgun. Let’s go.”

It’s not until they’re outside and on Alex’s bike that she thinks to ask, “How did you get here so quickly? Where were you?”

Kara turns her face against Alex’s back. “Um… Lena dropped me off.”

“Who’s Lena?”

“Lena Lynch.”

“ _Oh_.”

“Yeah.”

The roar of the wind prevents any more conversation, but Kara taps her shoulders as they go to let her know if she should turn. Alex feels marginally more like a criminal today than she has in a while as she runs every last red light they encounter. They pull up outside a townhouse. It’s different to the one Alex has been at, a little thinner, three storeys with a brick façade.

She feels Kara tense behind her, but it isn’t until they’re standing on the footpath that she figures out why. Kara indicates the nondescript black car across the road. “It’s Lena’s,” she says softly. It’s scared.

They snap to attention when they hear yelling from inside the building, though. Clearly these houses aren’t as well soundproofed as Alex’s. They both draw their guns, holding them low. Kara hurries up the steps first, pressing her shoulder into the door by the hinges. Alex stands on the other side and when Kara nods, she kicks the door in.

Kara sweeps in first, going left and Alex shuffles through to the right. She checks her corners, and up the stairs. The yelling is coming from up there, but Kara is proceeding through to the back, peeking into rooms as she goes. Alex remains on her heels the whole time and when they’re both satisfied that there’s no one on their level, Kara leads her back to the stairs.

Rather than going up, however, she goes down. To the basement. Makes sense, Alex supposes, if she was going to keep a hostage it would definitely be in the basement. There’s only one way in or out.

Alex minds the stairs while Kara investigates the door. It’s open so she pushes it in gently. Upstairs they are still yelling, which is a relief because it means her busting in the front door went unnoticed. They may even make it out of here without being detected at all. How utterly unexpected.

Kara disappears into the room but Alex keeps her focus on the stairs and the row going on above them. At least she does until she hears Kara call her name. Then she’s in the room faster than she thought possible.

Maggie is tied to a support pillar, a rag tied around her mouth. Her eyes widen when she sees Alex, and they definitely note the gun in her hands. Even though her sister has cleared the room already, Alex’s gaze takes it all in just to be sure. The door she came through is, in fact, the only exit. They’ll have to be fast.

She crouches beside Maggie, placing her gun at her feet and working quickly to undo her bindings, starting with the gag. As soon as it’s off, predictably, Maggie starts asking questions.

“What the _hell_ , Danvers? Who are these people? Who is that woman? Why do you have a gun? And, importantly, why am I being kidnapped?”

By the door, Kara starts laughing. Alex shoots her a warning glance and she clasps one hand over her mouth to try and stifle the noise. She fails. Miserably.

“Maggie, this is my sister, Kara.” Kara has the nerve to wave at her cutely. “I have no idea where we are, Kara knows more than I do. As far as I can tell, we’re in the basement of a Luthor safe house.” Maggie’s eyes widen even _further_ at that. She knows who the Luthors are, they’re less afraid of bandying their name about than her family is. “Presumably, they kidnapped you to get to me.”

“Or our produce, actually, Alex,” Kara pipes up unhelpfully.

She sighs, finally getting the knots undone and freeing Maggie’s hands. “Yes, that’s more accurate. The gun is… standard, I suppose.”

“ _Standard_? You have some explaining to do, I think,” Maggie tells her flatly. There’s nothing teasing about her tone or her expression and Alex just deflates.

“Yeah. But first, let’s get out of here.” Kara’s eyes flash dangerously so Alex feels the need to add, “ _Without_ starting a fight, thank you.”

“You are no fun.” Kara actually pouts. But she’s ready to move and that’s what matters.

Alex grabs her gun back up and follows Kara out the door. Maggie, bless her, doesn’t need to be told to stay behind her.

Unfortunately, it isn’t until they’re back on the main floor that Alex realises the argument upstairs is over. In front of her Kara tenses.

“How did you get in here?” The voice is deep, unfamiliar, but Kara’s immediately pointing her gun at the speaker so Alex readies herself too. She shuffles a little to one side so Alex also has a clear view of the man. It’s the bald guy from the trucks the other night, Lex Luthor. He has a black eye, she notes, wondering vaguely where it came from.

“Front door was unlocked,” Kara quips.

“Kara?”

Oh just great. How much _more_ complicated can a situation in a narrow hallway possibly get? Apparently very. Alex makes a mental note to slap Kara in the back of her stupid head later.

“Lena?” At least Kara had the good sense not to lower her weapon. “Fancy seeing you here.”

Behind her, Maggie leans in to whisper, “Family reunion?” And that, at least, holds a measure of teasing that relieves Alex to her toes.

“Lover’s spat, more like,” she corrects softly.

“We’re going to have one of those later.”

“When you start, I’d like to remind you that I did come and get you.”

“Now is not the time, guys,” Kara tells them. “How about you let us out of here, nice and easy?” She’s probably smiling one of her patented Sunshine Smiles™ but Alex is pretty certain it’s not going to work.

Luthor smiles, crooked and wrong and Alex is sure this is where stories of his madness rise. “Or… I could lock you all up.” He pauses a moment, eyes flicking to the woman – Lena, Kara had called her. “You’re the Danvers sisters. You know what I want.”

“The krypta,” Kara agrees. “Sure. But you’re not getting it.”

“I always get what I want, Danvers.” With that, he pulls a gun from… somewhere, Alex wasn’t watching. He doesn’t point it at them though. No, he levels the business end at Lena.

Alex can see how Kara tenses, see from how her shoulders jerk that she’s sucked in a breath. Very slowly, her gun lowers. For her part, Lena looks both confused and terrified. Alex suspects she has about as much clue as to what’s going on as Maggie.

“That’s right.” He smiles a little wider and Alex decides he’s definitely mad somehow. “Now, you’re going to tell me what I want, or I’m going to shoot her. Nice and simple.”

Lena turns wide, horrified eyes on him. “Lex!”

He doesn’t look at her.

“What’s going on,” Maggie whispers behind her.

“I’m not sure.”

Kara’s gun is at her side now but Alex can’t get a clean shot. She just needs a signal or _something_. “Fine,” Kara says. “Leave Lena alone. We can have this conversation like civilised people, right? Sitting down?”

Lex doesn’t lower his gun, keeps it trained on Lena. But he says, “Sure, I can be accommodating.” He gestures with his other hand. “After you, little Danvers.”

The hand holding her gun twitches just a little so Alex braces herself. As soon as Kara steps away – towards Lena, she notes – Alex lifts her gun. Then that fast forward series of events happens all at once. Kara grabs Lex’s gun and twists. It goes off, Lena shrieks, but the bullet flies up and hits the wall. At the same time, Alex pulls the trigger twice. And, as she’d promised the last time, she doesn’t miss.

Lex loses his grip on the gun and Kara wrenches it away from him, now holding one in each hand. Neither of which she points at him, instead she drops them both and takes a step towards Lena. Alex stops above him, two shots to the abdomen. He might survive, but she has no intention of sticking around to see when the police arrive.

She clips her gun back into its holster and collects Kara’s. Lex’s she leaves out of arm reach.

“We have to go. The police will be on their way.”

Maggie’s hand lands on the small of her back, very softly. “Where are we going?”

She blinks. “Back to my place,” she decides. “Kara, can you drive Lena’s car?”

Kara actually starts. “She’s coming with us?”

“Obviously, I’m not leaving her here to deal with this. Come on.”

The drive back to her townhouse is a blur; all she really feels the whole way is Maggie’s hands around her middle. She wonders if this will be the last time. Suddenly she just wants to lie down and maybe cry.

They pass the police on their way, sirens blaring. This will be on the news later, she knows.

And when she pulls up behind Lena’s car, Maggie slides off the back of her bike but she makes no move to follow. Maggie looks very concerned. Alex doesn’t blame her.

“Alex?” Kara’s voice.

“Go inside. We’ll just be a moment.” She throws the keys over to her and then leans forward against the handlebars, all the fight drained away.

She sees Maggie sink onto the concrete footpath out of her peripherals. Somehow, she even manages to smile when Maggie pats the spot next to her. She rolls her eyes but complies, wrapping her arms around her knees.

“So,” Maggie begins. “Today was a ride.”

Alex snorts. “Not quite what I’d call it.”

“No?”

“You were kidnapped,” she says just in case Maggie didn’t know. “Are you okay?”

Maggie lifts an eyebrow. “Fine. I didn’t go without a fight.”

“I saw your apartment,” she mumbles. “Tried cleaning up a bit. Did you give him that black eye?”

“Sure did.”

“Maybe you can punch Steven then and I’ll stay out of it.”

“Who the hell is Steven?” Maggie asks, baffled, her whole face scrunches up as she tries to figure it out.

“That dick from your cooking class.”

Maggie laughs. “His name is Brian, but sure.” She leans sideways into Alex. “Do I get the full story?”

Alex takes a good long breath, not sure she’ll ever be ready for the full story. “Um… I guess I’m a criminal? My dad is Jeremiah Danvers, the whole ‘family business’ thing is… like… criminal enterprising.”

“You’re… a gangster?”

“Yeah.”

“And the… accounting and management stuff? Was that all lies?”

“Oh god no.” Alex hasn’t been able to look at her this whole time but she does finally glance over at that. “That’s actually what I do. I manage staff and keep the fronts organised and arrange shipments and stuff like that. It’s honestly that boring.”

“So you don’t… kill people?”

Alex hunches her shoulders, looking away again. “I have… I have killed people, Maggie, yes. I don’t know if Luthor will count but it doesn’t matter.”

“So your sister… she’s…”

“Also a gangster, yep. She’s more into the protection side of stuff, still more managerial than you’re probably expecting, but yeah, she runs all the… all the drugs.”

Maggie lets out a great whooshing breath. “And that other woman? Lena?”

“I have no idea who she is,” Alex confesses. “Beyond possibly being the person Kara is currently dating. Maybe.”

“The shipping?”

“We do have legitimate fronts for a lot of our… illicit dealings,” she explains. “None of the shipping was fake. You um… actually worked for us.”

“I did what?” Maggie sounds horrified.

Alex smiles wanly. “Nothing criminal, I promise. But the florist was a front. You did honest business and we stored krypta in the back before moving it on to the other storage facilities and stuff.”

Maggie’s mouth hangs open. Very, very slowly it closes. “That’s why the shooting…” she realises breathily. “Oh…”

“Yeah. The Luthors have been trying to take our cut of the drug market for months now. I was stupid; I should’ve known they’d pick up on you.”

“Pick up on me?”

Alex rolls her eyes. “Kara warned me. Don’t get attached, she said. It’ll cost us later, she said. You know, I care about you, Maggie. I would’ve given Luthor what he wanted to save you. Same as Kara was apparently willing to give them to him to save Lena.”

Maggie is silent a long time. A long time. Alex starts to wonder if maybe, just maybe, this is the point where she walks away.

“How did Luthor know about me and you?” she asks quietly.

“Honestly? No idea,” Alex tells her, tiredly. “But it wouldn’t surprise me that he had men stationed near my place. All it would’ve taken was someone to realise you’d spent a night or two and that’s all the information they’d need to make that move. Even if they were wrong it wouldn’t matter.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means either they were right and I care about you and come and get you,” she says. “Or give them what they want in exchange. Or they’re wrong and I _don’t_ care and they just… get rid of you.”

Maggie’s eyes widen and she sucks in a breath. “Good to know.”

“Maggie?” She finally makes eye contact and it’s the hardest thing she’s done all year. “I’m sorry.”

After a moment of chewing her underlip, Maggie takes her hand. “You know, I meant when I said that I think you should do something for yourself.”

“Yeah, but I can’t ask you…” she trails off, searching for words. “It’s not safe. For me or for you and… you told me about your dad, about worrying for him. That’s not fair to you.”

Surprisingly, Maggie laughs. “You never think of yourself first, do you?”

She just shrugs.

“If you could do anything,” Maggie begins, squeezing her hand. “Anything in the whole world, without repercussions, what would you do?”

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

She mulls that over for a while, thinking about all the things she’s ever wanted to do. Eventually, her brain snags on that conversation she had with Kara just the other night. “I think… if I could do anything… I’d leave.”

“Why?”

“Because Kara was right,” she mumbles. “There is no safe way to have anything… normal, like this. The only people I interact with are other criminals. I don’t have friends, I have colleagues. And my sister. I want… more than that. I want to not worry about getting shot. _God_ , I would very much like to not be a target anymore.”

Maggie’s hand tightens just a little around hers. “What would you do?”

“No idea,” she laughs. “Literally the only things I’m good at are shooting and mixing drinks.”

“I don’t know about that,” Maggie sing-songs. “You’re a great manager from what I hear.”

She huffs another laugh. “Sure. Well… This hypothetical is all very well, but…”

“Family before all else?” Maggie guesses.

“I’m not leaving my sister behind,” she decides. “If I leave, she’s coming with.”

“Would she even want to?”

“It was her idea.”

“Maybe…” Maggie muses, leaning into her. “We should go talk to her about it, then.”

She makes to stand, but Alex draws her back down. “Maggie… Are we… okay?”

Something flickers in Maggie’s eyes, uncertainty, fear, something else she can’t name. For a moment Alex is convinced Maggie will pull away, avoid the question. But then she leans in and presses a kiss to Alex’s cheek.

“We’re okay,” she sighs. “For now. But we are going to revisit this later. In much, much more detail.”

“To be fair, the only thing I lied about was the whole… criminal thing,” Alex protests, letting Maggie draw her to her feet. “Honest.”

Maggie narrows her eyes, but it’s at least a little bit playful. “Sure. Whatever you say, Danvers.” She doesn’t let go of Alex’s hand as she pulls her inside, though, which has got to count for something, surely. “I hope meeting the rest of your family isn’t this exciting.”

Alex groans. “Oh no.”

“Oh _yes_.”

(Still, she’s secretly excited about the future, for the first time in years.)

**Author's Note:**

> Note on Lena: Adopted by the Luthors, but when she found out about her birth family she reclaimed her surname, citing irreconcilable differences with the Luthors. Has little to do with them anymore and doesn't know the exact scale of their criminal enterprising. I did say au.
> 
> Both Lena and Maggie have reason to take issue with what the Danvers girls do but you may fill in the blanks at the end how you will.
> 
> The title is from the song 'Run' by Sick Puppies. Might be relevant.


End file.
